6 | JUNE 2 • 2022 

1942 - 2022

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student’s corner
A ‘Hidden’ Holiday
S

o here we are: The end 
of the Hebrew month 
of Iyar is around the 
corner, with it possibly already 
having passed by the time this 
article has been published in the 
Jewish News. The 
2021-2022 
school year will 
be coming to a 
close, with the 
summer being in 
sight. 
 The seniors at 
FJA have already 
graduated, with April 29 being 
their last day. They embarked 
on a trip to Israel on May 15. 
My own class, the freshmen of 
FJA, went to Montana to visit 
the Northern Cheyenne, who 
are a group of Native Americans 
residing slightly northeast of 
Yellowstone National Park. 
With all of the distractions 
and events out of the way, it’s 

about time to reveal the main 
focus point of this article: the 
upcoming and recent Jewish 
holidays. 
To start, there have been 
three modern Jewish holidays 
and memorial days that have 
been commemorated recently: 
Yom HaShoah, Yom HaZikaron 
and Yom HaAtzmaut. This year, 
all three of them fell on dates 
when we had school, so we got 
the chance to commemorate 
them during school. The 
schedule was adjusted to 
set aside time for special 
ceremonies and activities. 
However, unlike the three 
holidays/memorial days 
mentioned above, the next 
holiday is one where there is 
no school (if one attends a 
Jewish school that is). Shavuot 
has always been one of those 
obscure holidays to me. My 
family doesn’t typically do 

anything special during this 
time except to go to a friend’s 
house for a meal. 
For most other yom tov 
holidays (like Rosh Hashanah, 
Yom Kippur, certain days of 
Passover, etc.), my family will 
either go to services or do 
something at home for them. 
This is not the case for Shavuot, 
which is spent like a normal 
weekend or snow day when 
there’s no school. 
Furthermore, because the 
holiday is in close proximity 
to the end of the school year, 

school trips, other important 
events/days and more, the 
holiday often feels like it is 
glossed over, with not much 
attention being put on it. 
It’s not like this is a small 
holiday either. It is one of 
the three harvest festivals, or 
Shalosh Regalim, with the other 
two being Sukkot and Pesach. 
In addition, we count down 
to Shavuot with the Omer, 
which is a 49-day period from 
the second day of Passover to 
Shavuot.
There is an additional 

PURELY COMMENTARY

continued on page 7

Brody 
Fleishman

